Switzerland’s Roger Federer in action during his round robin match against Croatia’s Marin Cilic at the ATP World tennis finals in London, Britain, 16 November 2017. EPA-EFE/ANDY RAIN
By Richard Pagliaro
Roger Federer wasn’t the only member of the family playing in London last week.
The Grand Slam king and wife Mirka took their two sets of twins—eight-year-old daughters Myla and Charlene and three-year-old sons Leo and Lenny—on a play date to Kensington Palace.
The Federers took the short trip from their hotel to Kensington Palace to spend time with their friends, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, at the palace.
Prince William and wife Kate Middleton are the parents of two children.
The royal couple’s son, Prince George, is four years old and perhaps a future tennis partner for Leo and Lenny Federer. Princess Charlotte is two years old.
Wimbledon watchers know Prince William and Princess Kate are die-hard tennis fans and visitors to the Royal Box each summer.
The Prince and Princess are devoted Federer fans and long-time friends of Roger and Mirka.
Kate Middleton, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, is an avid tennis player herself.
Princess Kate recently showed her tennis skills at the LTA’s “Tennis For Kids” initiative held on Halloween at the National Tennis Center in Roehampton.
Mirka Federer carried a pair of gift-wrapped boxes for the Federer family’s two-hour get-together with the royal family at Kensington Palace, according to a report in The Daily Mail.
Following his three-set loss to David Goffin in the Nitto ATP Finals semifinals, Federer said he was looking forward to spending quality time with his family during an upcoming vacation before beginning training for his Australian Open title defense in January.
“I’ll probably take two weeks off, two weeks’ vacation,” Federer told the media in London. “I feel like it’s what we always need at the end of the season, not just myself, but my wife as well, and my kids, too. We all need to spend some family time together. We love that. Most important time of our lives, to spend the time together like that.”